The abortion issue is helping limit Democrats' losses in the midterm elections

The abortion issue is helping limit Democrats' losses in the midterm elections

Republicans are likely to take control of one or both houses of Congress when all votes are counted, but Democrats celebrated on Wednesday after their party defied expectations of significant losses in the midterm elections. The backlash to the Supreme Court's decision in June to overturn the 49-year-old abortion law was apparently a big reason.

Inflation and the economy emerged as the top voting issue, cited as motivating by 51% of voters in polls conducted by Associated Press and Associated Press analyzed by KFF pollsters. But abortion was the most important issue for a quarter of all voters and for a third of women under 50. End NBC News polls ranked the importance of abortion even higher, with 32% of voters saying inflation was their top voting issue and abortion coming in second at 27%.

The predicted "red wave" of Republicans toppling Democrats in the House and Senate has not materialized, although it appeared likely Wednesday afternoon that Republicans would win the handful of seats they needed to take the House majority.

In the Senate, where Republicans needed just a pickup truck to take control, no incumbent had officially lost, and Democrats captured the Pennsylvania seat vacated by Republican Sen. Pat Toomey. Several other close races had yet to be called, and control of the chamber could well rest on a December runoff election in Georgia between incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker. In recent decades, the party that controls the White House has generally suffered major setbacks in congressional power midterms.

Among other issues facing voters Tuesday, South Dakota residents agreed with one Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. It became the seventh state to expand the program over the objections of a Republican governor and/or the state legislature. Previous successful initiatives have taken place in Idaho, Maine, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Utah. South Dakota's approval will reduce the number to 11 States that have not expanded the program for people with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level, although this list also includes the heavily populated states of Texas, Florida and Georgia.

On the issue of abortion rights, voters in five states across the political spectrum showed direct support through ballot initiatives. In the most closely watched of these measures, Michigan voters approved a constitutional amendment that guaranteed, and therefore prevented, reproductive freedom a ban from 1931 from entry into force.

Kentucky voters narrowly rejected an amendment that would have declared in its constitution that there is no right to abortion. This made it the first southern state to directly support abortion rights.

Other ballot questions on abortion rights were approved Vermont and California. The California measure, the approved with 65% of the votes enshrines the right to abortion and contraception.

In Montana, a ballot measure requiring that infants born alive following abortion attempts receive medical care lost with 80% of the vote. Such a regulation already exists in federal law.

Additionally, in several key states where the legality of abortion is at stake, pro-abortion rights governors and candidates have defeated anti-abortion opponents, including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

Abortion has also been an issue in contentious Supreme Court elections in at least six states, where challenges to abortion laws or constitutional interpretations could decide whether the procedure remains legal. One state saw party control in its Supreme Court change: North Carolina, where a Republican challenger defeated a Democratic incumbent to give the GOP a 4-3 majority. Democratic judicial majorities appeared to be holding their own Illinois and in Michigan, which holds nonpartisan judicial elections after candidates are nominated by political parties. Republican in Ohio retained their majority at the Supreme Court.

In Kentucky, Judge Michelle Keller defeated challenger Joe Fischer, a Republican lawmaker sponsored Kentucky's abortion trigger law. Incumbent Montana Judge Ingrid Gustafson defeated her challenger James Brown, a Republican who was backed by the state's GOP governor and party leaders seeking a reversal a court ruling from 1999 that the state constitution protects the right to abortion.

Abortion wasn't the only health issue in Tuesday's state election.

There is a ballot question in Arizona Limit interest on medical debt won easily with 66% of votes counted. In Oregon, however, a mostly unenforceable question is a “ Right to health care ” in the state constitution narrowly lost with 64% of the vote.

California voters voted a Banning the sale of most flavored tobacco products while voters in Massachusetts supported Dentists about insurance in approving a requirement that at least 83% of dental insurance premiums be spent on direct dental care. Massachusetts is the first state to impose such a requirement.

In Iowa, gun rights activists scored a victory easy passage a constitutional amendment declaring that Iowans have “an individual fundamental right” to keep and bear arms and that any gun restrictions must pass “rigorous scrutiny” in court.

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